Short answers, pulled from the story.
GameRankings was a video game review aggregator founded in 1999 and owned by CBS Interactive. It indexed over 315,000 articles covering more than 14,500 video games before shutting down in December 2019.
GameRankings was shut down on the 9th of December 2019. Its domain was redirected to Metacritic, and its staff were merged with that rival aggregator.
GameRankings converted all review scores into percentages using a fixed conversion scale, where an A-plus equaled 100% and each letter grade stepped down by five percent. It then calculated a simple mean of all scores from accredited sources, without applying any weighting to particular outlets.
GameRankings used an unweighted simple mean of all accredited review scores, while Metacritic applies an opinionated weighting system that gives more influence to certain outlets. GameRankings also required at least six reviews before a game received any ranking.
At the time of closure in December 2019, seven games held an aggregate score of 97% or higher: Super Mario Galaxy, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Galaxy 2, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Grand Theft Auto V.
GameRankings deemed only certain reviews notable enough to factor into a game's aggregate score, even though it listed hundreds of reviews in total. A game also needed at least six qualifying reviews before it was assigned any ranking in the database.